As dangers mount,  our foolish politicians should all be forced to read, and then re-read, Prof. Christopher Clark's magisterial book, 'The Sleepwalkers: How Europe Went to War in 1914.' What is past increasingly appears prologue.

Prof. Clark carefully details how small cabals of anti-German senior officials in France, Britain and Russia  engineered World War I, a dire conflict that was unnecessary, idiotic, and illogical. Germany and Austria-Hungary, of course, share some the blame, but to a much lesser degree than the bellicose French, Serbs, Russians and British.

We are seeing the same process at work today. The war party in Washington, backed by the military-industrial complex, the tame media, and the neocons, are agitating hard for war. 

US and NATO combat forces are being sent to Russia's western borders in Ukraine, the Baltic, and the Black Sea. NATO is arming, financing ($40 billion so far) and supplying Ukraine in its conflict with Russia. Prominent Americans are calling for the US to attack Russian forces in Syria. US warships are off Russia's coasts in the Black Sea, Baltic, and Pacific. NATO air forces are probing Russia's western air borders.